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Craft beer taps into Prince Edward County

After a decade-long boom, the growth of wineries in Prince Edward County has hit a plateau so county businesses are focusing on another boozy beverage — beer.

Since 2016, five breweries have opened in Prince Edward County and five more are under construction. There is also a cidery in the region known for its apple orchards with another coming soon. They’re all taking advantage of the area’s strong tourism infrastructure, tapping taste buds already attuned to artisanal food and drink.

The County Road Beer Co. is a micro brewery in Prince Edward County, Ontario. (Melissa Renwick / Melissa Renwick)

The tap room at Parsons Brewing was formerly a blacksmith shop built in 1850 in nearby Bloomfield. The crumbling building was painstakingly disassembled, restored and rebuilt on the Parsons’ property just north of Picton. (Melissa Renwick / Melissa Renwick)

“There was a bit of a gold rush for vines and I think a lot of people found that it’s really not economical to grow grapes in the county,” says Chris Dinadis, co-owner of County Road Beer Company, which launched in February 2016.

He moved from Toronto to Prince Edward County to start the brewery alongside his childhood friend Vicki Samaras. She wanted to diversify her winemaking operation, Hinterland Wine Company, which she opened in 2005.

“Mother Nature hits us with frost damage every five years,” says Samaras.

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Unlike grapes, beer’s base ingredients — malted barley and hops — are less susceptible to the whims of the weather. Malted barley is shelf-stable, while hops can be refrigerated for years. Brewers typically ship in these ingredients from as far as Germany and New Zealand.

But at County Road, which specializes in saisons — a rustic, refreshing pale ale style — they can still tap into Prince Edward County’s regional character, or terroir, by using its water.

“It’s very alkaline because of the limestone,” says Samaras. “It makes our saisons more crisp and less creamy.”

County Road Beer Co. Farmhouse Saison.

Brewers can also work with local suppliers to add regional flavour to their beers. Pleasant Valley Hops, opened by Edgar Ramirez and Catherine Crawford, grows five varieties of the beer-bittering ingredient just a few minutes down the road from Samaras and Dinadis’ operation. And 45 minutes away at Bellville’s Barn Owl Malt, Devin and Leslie Huffman malt locally-grown barley using traditional methods, catering to the province’s burgeoning craft beer industry.

For Brett French, brewmaster at Picton’s Barley Days Brewing, putting brewers and suppliers in close reach fosters a tight-knit community. “I’ll get a call from our hop grower and he’ll say ‘Hey Brett, what hops would you like me to throw into the ground this year?’” French says. “Everything we need is right here at our back door.”

Barley Days, opened by Chris Rogers, was Prince Edward County’s first craft brewery when it launched in 2007. But the region’s boozy history dates back to the mid 1800s. During this time, barley made up half of the crops grown in the county. The bulk of it was shipped across Lake Ontario to brewers in the United States.

Many of the homes in Prince Edward County were built during this time as the region was settled by Loyalist (American colonists who supported Britain). At Parsons Brewing, owners Chris and Samantha Parsons honour the county’s heritage by repurposing some of its old buildings. The tap room, formerly a blacksmith shop, then a doctor’s house, was built in 1850 in nearby Bloomfield. The crumbling building was painstakingly disassembled, restored and rebuilt on the Parsons’ property just north of Picton.

The Parsons moved from Toronto to Prince Edward County in 2012 in search of a simpler life. Chris had always been interested in craft beer and began home brewing in the family’s garage. The hobby became a full-fledged operation in 2016 when they launched their own brewery.

The Parsons have since been overwhelmed with interest in their beers, which range from west coast-style pale ales to barrel-aged stouts. “We had originally targeted to be in five licensees,” Chris Parsons says. They now have 16 tap accounts at bars and restaurants in Prince Edward County and are turning away new licensees.

But at Strange Brewing Company in Hillier, owner Dave Frederick is eager to expand his fledgling business. Operating out of his basement, Strange Brewing is the county’s smallest brewery with a capacity of just 200 litres per batch. Frederick currently supplies a pale ale made with juniper berries to three county establishments — Soup Opera, the County Canteen and Kin Cafe — and hopes to add more licensees to the list.

Frederick first moved to Prince Edward County in 2010 as a winemaker for By Chadsey’s Cairns Winery. “I always wanted to have a winery but it never seemed feasible just because of the amount of money you need to invest,” Frederick says. Borrowing a bit of expertise from winemaking, he opened Strange Brewing in 2016.

“Coming from a wine background, I look at nuances of aromas and flavours,” says Frederick of his beer brewing skills. He is going for a beer that is well balanced on the palate “so it’s not overly hoppy or bitter.”

Dave Frederick operates his micro brewery, The Strange Brewing Co. from the basement of his Prince Edward County home. (Melissa Renwick)

The crossover between wine and beer is something that owners of The County Canteen, Picton’s first brew pub, are familiar with. Drew and Nat Wollenberg witnessed how a tourist area near their former home of Perth, Australia transformed. “It was a really nice wine region and all of a sudden microbreweries started popping up all over the place,” says Drew Wollenberg, who grew up between Toronto, Kitchener and his grandparents’ home in Prince Edward County. When he was a teenager, Drew relocated to Australia with his family and in university; he met Nat, a native Australian. “We decided to move back here (in 2014) and start The Canteen partially because we saw the writing on the wall.”

The County Canteen opened in 2015, showcasing local brews including beers made on-site by Drew using a tiny phone booth-sized system. But when a storefront came up for rent just a few hundred metres down the road from the County Canteen, the Wollenbergs saw an opportunity for Drew to exercise his beer-making creativity in larger quantities. Construction on 555 Brewing Co. began last May and the brewery opened March 25.

New breweries including 555 Brewing, Parsons, County Road and Strange Brewing help to draw in visitors outside of the region’s busy summer months, according to Prince Edward County Chamber of Tourism and Commerce Executive Director Emily Cowan. “It has the opportunity to prolong our tourist season, as products can be produced all year round,” she says.

And it’s not only tourists who benefit from Prince Edward County’s burgeoning beer industry. It keeps more local residents employed beyond the high season, like at County Road Beer. “A lot of people will close for the winter and lay off their staff,” says Chris Dinadis, who keeps his team working year-round. “People aren’t going to start coming to the county unless there are places that stay open in January and February. It has to be made a destination place to become one.”

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